Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 17
  2. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. Laura's histrionics sometimes seem forced, and Hines has to struggle to be the heel the screenplay sometimes asks him to be.
  2. Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    88
    Reveals real feelings.
  3. I value the flawed Tic Code over a good many relatively flawless features because it has more heart, more life, and more spunk.
  4. 63
    Works better as a sociological study than as a gripping drama.
  5. Badly lit and at times, awkwardly inspirational, yet there's real feeling in it, especially when the movie suggests that Tourette's syndrome is every bit as pure an expression of the spirit as it is a ''disorder.''
  6. Reviewed by: Tom Keogh
    90
    Director Gary Winick ("Sweet Nothing") ingeniously complements Draper's layered approach by modulating the film's energy in fascinating ways.
  7. 50
    What at first seems emotionally charged, ultimately comes off as contrived.
  8. Starts out self-consciously but gets better as it goes along, winding up as affecting as it is illuminating.
  9. Has the schematic feel of a disease-of-the-week TV movie, but the connections made between jazz and the minds that produce it turns the film into something much more intimate and compelling.
  10. 75
    Sounds bleak, but turns out to be an absorbing and lively film.
  11. An honest, plainspoken and unsentimental movie.
  12. 75
    The little film is made uniquely engaging by the performance of its young star, Chris Marquette.
  13. If it seems to have the ingredients of an after-school special, the performances take it to another level. Gut level.
  14. Not entirely persuasive, not entirely schmaltzy, "The Tic Code" is one of those well-meant dramatizations... that mysteriously made it all the way to a theater near you.
  15. Like most movies that examine specific ailments, this gawky, occasionally touching film has the feel of a dramatized case history whose purpose is to educate as much as it is to tell a story.
  16. 50
    Preachy and predictable, an afterschool special in all but name.
  17. 60
    A sympathetic but conventional disease-of-the-week movie.

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